Running away is one of the things Holden regularly fantasizes about. There was a time when Holden was on a date with Sally Hayes, and he unpredictably asks her to run away with him. Holden says to Sally "...What we could do is, tomorrow we could drive up to Massachusetts and Vermont, and all around there...We'll stay in these cabin camps and stuff like that till the dough runs out. Then when the dough runs out, I could get a job somewhere and we could get married or something. I could chop all our own wood in the wintertime and all."(Salinger, 132). Of course, this sounds ridiculous to Sally, so she gets up and leaves. Another thing he fantasized about was living alone in a cabin as a deaf-mute. He said that he would bum a ride and bum another one till he made it to the west where he would have a job "somewhere, putting gas and oil in people's cars." (Salinger, 198). He goes on to say that if he wanted to get married, he would marry a beautiful girl who was also a deaf-mute, and if they had children, they would hide them somewhere. He fantasizes about being a deaf-mute because he says that he doesn't want to have any stupid conversations with people. In both fantasizes, he talked about living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. That shows that he likes the simple life, and wants to be isolated from the real world where all the adults live because he feels that he cannot handle that world because it's full of phonies, and he wants nothing to do with them. In his real life, he actually does run away. He finds out that he’s getting kicked out of Pency (his school), and his parents aren’t going to know for another week. So, he decides to run away from Pency and his parents, and live in New York by himself. So he actually lived out one of his fantasizes.
There have been many times when Holden has fantasized about death, pain, and sickness. There was the time where he was walking around the park in the freezing cold, and he imagined that he would get pneumonia and die. There was also the time when he was in his dorm with Ackley and he started calling out to Ackley saying, “I think I’m going blind. Mother, darling, give me your hand. Why won’t you give me your hand?” (Salinger, 21). There was another time when he was on the train, leaving Pency, and he runs into this woman, who happens to have a son that goes to Pency. The woman is wondering why he’s not at Pency, and he tells her it’s because he has a little tumor in his brain, and has to go home for surgery. There was also the time when he was reading a magazine, and there was an article that would tell you if you had cancer or not. He read it, and he realized that he had this sore on his lip for quite a while, and so he thought that he had cancer and would die within a couple of months. There was another time when he was thinking about war, and he said, “I swear if there’s ever another war, they better just take me out and stick me in the front of a firing squad. I wouldn’t object.” (Salinger, 141). He even thought about killing people in one of his fantasizes. He said that he’d rather push a guy out the window or chop the guy’s head off with an ax than punch him in the face. He says that he’d rather do that because he hates seeing the person’s face when he hurts someone. In one of his fantasizes, he acts out his anger against his parents by inflicting upon them the ultimate punishment, his death (Miller, 135). He starts imagining what his funeral would be like when he dies. He pictures his parents crying their eyes out, and a bunch of jerks that are there. Then he started thinking about them putting him in a cemetery, and he doesn’t want that. He wants them to just dump him in a river somewhere. There was also the time when he’s thinking about jumping out a window, and he remembers a kid who did that, James Castle. James Castle was apparently tortured by a bunch of students that he decided to jump out a window. When James Castle jumped out the window, he was dead, and his teeth and blood were everywhere, and he was also wearing Holden’s shirt. One of the most famous and most memorable death fantasizes that Holden has is when, he kills Maurice, the bellhop. Holden had just been beaten up and robbed by old Maurice, so he fantasizes about killing him. He imagines that he shot himself in the guts, and then walks down the stairs toward the elevator, and when Maurice would open the door, he would see Holden with a gun in his hand, and then Holden would shoot Maurice till he was dead. Later on, he has that same fantasy. Only this time, he’s incredibly drunk and in a bar. He imagines that he’s the only guy in the bar with a bullet in his guts, and he keeps his hand on his guts the whole time to keep the blood from dripping. He must be extremely drunk.
His most important fantasies are when he’s thinking about being a catcher in the rye. He sees himself as the only adult in a world of children (Seng, 204). “Anway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do. I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff. I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going, I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye.” (Salinger, 173). What he means by this is that he wants to save children from becoming phony adults. When the kids go over that cliff, it represents kids going from child world to adult world. Holden wants children to be children as long as possible. He wants to protect the children’s innocence. Holden feels that it’s his job to keep the kids from becoming adults and losing their innocence. However, one day that fantasy is crushed, when he goes to his little sister’s, Phoebe’s, school. He sees that somebody wrote “Fk you” on the wall. That drove him crazy, so he rubs it off with his hands. Then he sees another one. This time it has been scratched on with a knife so he can’t get rid of it. He goes to the museum and sees another one, and he realizes that “if you had a million years to do it in, you couldn’t rub out even half the ‘Fk you’ signs in the world. It’s impossible.” (Salinger, 202). This means that he realized that he can’t erase all the obscenities in the world, that he can’t catch all the children, that evil ispermanent (Baumbach, 471). By the end of the book, he really realizes that he can’t catch all the children, that he has to let them fall, when he sees Phoebe on the carrousel. “All of the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she’d fall off the godd**n horse, but I didn’t say anything or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them (Salinger, 211). This is what makes Holden realize that he can’t catch all the children, that he has to let them fall. That that’s the only way they’ll know and learn, to let them fall off the cliff.
There have been many times when Holden has fantasized about death, pain, and sickness. There was the time where he was walking around the park in the freezing cold, and he imagined that he would get pneumonia and die. There was also the time when he was in his dorm with Ackley and he started calling out to Ackley saying, “I think I’m going blind. Mother, darling, give me your hand. Why won’t you give me your hand?” (Salinger, 21). There was another time when he was on the train, leaving Pency, and he runs into this woman, who happens to have a son that goes to Pency. The woman is wondering why he’s not at Pency, and he tells her it’s because he has a little tumor in his brain, and has to go home for surgery. There was also the time when he was reading a magazine, and there was an article that would tell you if you had cancer or not. He read it, and he realized that he had this sore on his lip for quite a while, and so he thought that he had cancer and would die within a couple of months. There was another time when he was thinking about war, and he said, “I swear if there’s ever another war, they better just take me out and stick me in the front of a firing squad. I wouldn’t object.” (Salinger, 141). He even thought about killing people in one of his fantasizes. He said that he’d rather push a guy out the window or chop the guy’s head off with an ax than punch him in the face. He says that he’d rather do that because he hates seeing the person’s face when he hurts someone. In one of his fantasizes, he acts out his anger against his parents by inflicting upon them the ultimate punishment, his death (Miller, 135). He starts imagining what his funeral would be like when he dies. He pictures his parents crying their eyes out, and a bunch of jerks that are there. Then he started thinking about them putting him in a cemetery, and he doesn’t want that. He wants them to just dump him in a river somewhere. There was also the time when he’s thinking about jumping out a window, and he remembers a kid who did that, James Castle. James Castle was apparently tortured by a bunch of students that he decided to jump out a window. When James Castle jumped out the window, he was dead, and his teeth and blood were everywhere, and he was also wearing Holden’s shirt. One of the most famous and most memorable death fantasizes that Holden has is when, he kills Maurice, the bellhop. Holden had just been beaten up and robbed by old Maurice, so he fantasizes about killing him. He imagines that he shot himself in the guts, and then walks down the stairs toward the elevator, and when Maurice would open the door, he would see Holden with a gun in his hand, and then Holden would shoot Maurice till he was dead. Later on, he has that same fantasy. Only this time, he’s incredibly drunk and in a bar. He imagines that he’s the only guy in the bar with a bullet in his guts, and he keeps his hand on his guts the whole time to keep the blood from dripping. He must be extremely drunk.
His most important fantasies are when he’s thinking about being a catcher in the rye. He sees himself as the only adult in a world of children (Seng, 204). “Anway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do. I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff. I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going, I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye.” (Salinger, 173). What he means by this is that he wants to save children from becoming phony adults. When the kids go over that cliff, it represents kids going from child world to adult world. Holden wants children to be children as long as possible. He wants to protect the children’s innocence. Holden feels that it’s his job to keep the kids from becoming adults and losing their innocence. However, one day that fantasy is crushed, when he goes to his little sister’s, Phoebe’s, school. He sees that somebody wrote “Fk you” on the wall. That drove him crazy, so he rubs it off with his hands. Then he sees another one. This time it has been scratched on with a knife so he can’t get rid of it. He goes to the museum and sees another one, and he realizes that “if you had a million years to do it in, you couldn’t rub out even half the ‘Fk you’ signs in the world. It’s impossible.” (Salinger, 202). This means that he realized that he can’t erase all the obscenities in the world, that he can’t catch all the children, that evil is permanent (Baumbach, 471). By the end of the book, he really realizes that he can’t catch all the children, that he has to let them fall, when he sees Phoebe on the carrousel. “All of the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she’d fall off the godd**n horse, but I didn’t say anything or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them (Salinger, 211). This is what makes Holden realize that he can’t catch all the children, that he has to let them fall. That that’s the only way they’ll know and learn, to let them fall off the cliff.